The New Age and Satanism

By Vexen Crabtree 2004 May 26

Satanism is not New Age, and is in most areas very much incompatible with traditional New Age thought. However bookstores will invariably put LaVey's books in the Mind-Body-Spirit section, through ignorance and innocence. LaVey's texts clearly should be in philosophy or religion, probably the latter. This page does not include an introduction to what the New Age is. "Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults" by Steve Bruce (1996) [Book Review] contains a good chapter on the New Age that covers the basics plus sociology & indicative statistics on the New Age.

1. Comparing Satanism and the New Age
   1. Things in Common
   2. Fundamental and Large Areas of Disagreement
2. History of the New Age Movement
3. Criticism of New Age Spirituality
4. To Oppose or Support the New Age Movement?

1. Comparing Satanism and the New Age

1.1. Things in Common

New Age is also known as "Self-Spirituality", "Mind-Body-Spirit", "Age of Aquarius" and has been historically known as the "Mind-Cure" movement, the "New Thought" movement, the "Religion of Healthy-Mindedness" and "Mental Science".

The definitions of things like New Religious Movements (NRMs) the New Age are fraught with difficulties and contradictions. Neo-paganism; neo-druidism, the revival of interest in native religious culture; Wicca and Paganism; and the New Age in general, all share certain features and have overlapping memberships₁, so, they all get a mention on this page. These spiritualities are all highly individualistic₂, based on personal experience₃, which are both features popular in modernism in general. Many of the elements of these movements are not new in terms of beliefs or practices, just new in terms of (dis-)organisation and context.

While the roots of modern New Age are very much white light and Christian, I would guess that many elements are a survival of similar ancient mystical and spiritualist practices that have existed for thousands of years. The difference is the approach: Such practices are no longer lifelong commitments to particular disciplines. Modern new age approaches all religions and paths as things that can be pilfered from and used ad hoc, with each person forming their own semi-coherent set of practices and beliefs. Hence it is completely individualistic and not centralized.

Satanism and New Age therefore do have some things in common:

• Belief that spiritual, natural or supernatural forces, where they exist, can be used for practical purposes according to how the self sees fit in accordance with rules of cause and effect.

• Belief that belief-systems are individual, free, that consolidation of beliefs (i.e., becoming an organized religion with dogmatic beliefs) is a historical error leading to closed minded stagnation i.e., as most world religions become.

• Belief in self-help and self-empowerment.

• Break from organized religious structures.

• Both have gone through, and are going through, processes of emerging from being "underground" and are now able of being open and direct via internet and bookshops in a way never before possible. This is because oppressive Christian/white light powers are no longer in general control of our culture.

• The scholar Asbjrn Dyrendal states that "New Age and Satanism share a common suspicion of the socialized self and of socially dominant ideologies"₄, which is true, as both distrust the way the "masses" are made docile and predictable by the mass media, trash culture, etc, and seek to break free from such limitations. Dyrendal does go on to point out differences. His fellow academic, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, writes that "Although modern Satanism is very different from New Age spirituality on many accounts, the basic focus on socialization as repression of an essential nature [...] are comparable" [In "Contemporary Religious Satanism" by Jesper Aagaard Petersen (2009)₅].

1.2. Fundamental and Large Areas of Disagreement

• Asbjrn Dyrendal: "The self-development strategies we encounter in LaVeyan texts are rarely probable candidates for inclusion in a "New Age"-like [environment]"₄.

• New Age is infused with concepts of karma and white light concepts of "good" behaviour.

• The white-light terminology and good-guy-badge approach of much of the new age is frequently shunned by Satanists.

• The religious and quasi-godly talk is abhorrent to Satanists, the New Age's roots in theistic mysticism clouds the balance of the entire genre of thought.

• New Agers tend to be ridiculously gullible and very uncritical of crazy beliefs and odd ideas. Satanists criticize ideas and think deeply about them, whereas the New Age is rammed full of so many obviously wrong-headed ideas it is hard to imagine how thinking Humans can fall for any of it. Satanism is the opposite, and is a religion of doubters, skeptics and questioners!

2. History of the New Age Movement

The New Age is a collection of practices and beliefs and is not a worked-out structured belief system. All individual elements of the New Age are survivals and echoes of older religious practices taken from folklore, superstitious and magical practices, common pre-modern magical practices, Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and various other secondary sources. Practices that are commonplace amongst the Hindus in India, such as meditation, are simply called 'new age' when they happen to be (partially) practiced in the West by Westerners rather than in their original context. Much of the New Age derives from diluted practices and ideas brought from India by the Theosophists, who began their popularisation.

“A major difficulty with understanding New Age is that it does not conform to traditionally understood forms of religious organisation. [... It] is highly diversified and means many different things to different people. [...] It is instead a loose series of networks between different groups or cells - some similar or even duplicates, others radically contrasting - while a constantly varying number of spokespeople, therapists and teachers who are in vogue at any given point in time move through its various circuits. [...] For the most part, people who identify with New Age are anti-institutional and claim to be 'spiritual' rather than 'religious'.”

Michael York in "Encyclopedia of New Religions" by Christopher Partridge (2004)₆

“The situation we find ourselves in [...] is that upper-class Indians visiting the Theosophical Society, middle-class Indians visiting Sai Baba's, or Indian hippies sitting on the rocks of Mahabalipvram, are best not thought of as 'New Age'. But Westerners, New Age in California, surely continue to be New Age when they visit the same sites. [...] Bhagwan, catering for Indians during the earlier 1970s, is best regarded as just another Indian Guru. But Bhagwan in Oregan [...] is clearly best regarded as New Age”

"The New Age Movement: Religion, Culture and Society in the Age of Postmodernity" by Paul Heelas (1996)₇

1960s
The OCRT describe the modern movement now known as New Age as becoming popular in the 1970s, and state:

“Its roots are traceable to many sources: Astrology, Channeling, Hinduism, Gnostic traditions, Spiritualism, Taosim, Theosophy, Wicca and other Neo-pagan traditions, etc. The movement started in England in the 1960's where many of these elements were well established. Small groups, such as the Findhorn Community in Inverness and the Wrekin Trust formed. The movement quickly became international. Early New Age mileposts in North America were a "New Age Seminar" ran by the Association for Research and Enlightenment, and the establishment of the East-West Journal in 1971.”

www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm

Pre-1900s
However it is identifiable as a noticeable and significant movement at least seventy years before then. William James' lectures in 1900/1901 compiled as "The Varieties of Religious Experience" describe the new age movement as a wave sweeping America. If it was already a wave by 1901, it must have been gaining momentum even before then, too.

William James₈ clearly describes the early movement that we now know as "New Age", calling it the "New Thought" and "Mind cure" movement. He describes it as a flood that is sweeping America. "It has reached the stage, for example, when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff, mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent provided by publishers - a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until a religion got well past its earliest insecure beginnings". He lists its influences as being:

• The four Christian Gospels

• Emersonianism or New England transcendentalism

• Berkeleyan idealism

• Spiritism

• Hinduism

Alan Anderson lists some important figures and groups in the formation of the new age movement:

“New Thought [began] in the nineteenth century [...]. It is the outgrowth of the healing theory and practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, whose influence was spread by his former patients, the most prominent of whom were: Warren Felt Evans, who wrote the first books in what would be called New Thought; Mary Baker Eddy, who established Christian Science; and Julius and Annetta Dresser, who, with their son Horatio, spread the word about Quimby. Former Eddy associate Emma Curtis Hopkins taught her own version of healing idealism, indebted indirectly to Quimby and directly to her own explorations and to Eddy. Hopkins, the "teacher of teachers," taught founders of Divine Science, Unity, and Religious Science. These groups, along with Religious Science-influenced Seich-No-Ie, are the best-known groups in the New Thought movement.

The name New Thought was taken in the 1890s, generally replacing such names as Mind Cure and Mental Science. William James dealt with the movement in Lectures IV and V of "The Varieties of Religious Experience" under the name "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness." [...] Some studies of the New Thought movement by Charles S. Braden, Horatio W. Dresser, Stillson J. Judah, and others are given in the bibliography of the most recent survey of the field, "New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality"”

Alan Anderson, on the New Age

I would also add that major influences have been Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky (the Fourth Way), Westernized versions of Buddhist and Hindu belief (the Theosophists), confusing modern science (Quantum mechanics and the surrounding philosophers and science fiction writers) and various other age-old superstitions and spiritual beliefs that have all been lumped together haphazardly to form a loose background of rationalisation and inspiration for the New Age movement. (And indeed some of these influences are important across the occult world in general).

3. Criticism of New Age Spirituality

Many New Religious Movements, especially the New Age, thrive on emotional instinct, basic magical thinking and supernatural beliefs that are anathema to science - "the heart in favour of the head"₉. Scientific journals and periodicals such as the Skeptical Inquirer are filled with articles that despair at the scientific nonsense that is peddled on the New Age shelves of bookstores. Sam Harris summarizes:

“The New Age has [...] made spiritual life seem generally synonymous with the forfeiture of brain cells. Most of the beliefs and practices that have been designated as "spiritual," in this New Age or in any other, have arisen and thrive in a perfect vacuum of critical intelligence. Indeed, many New Age ideas are so ridiculous as to produce terror in otherwise dispassionate men.”

"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" by Sam Harris (2006)₁₀

Amongst Satanists there is spite and distrust of the New Age movement. Anton LaVey hated it and talked of maze-making, obfuscation and misguided convoluted practices based on delusional white-light style ideas, and much of the New Age is considered, by Satanists, to be a refuge for sheep who are taken up on anti-Christian waves but who are unable to drop spiritualistic trappings, so they merely tag along with the New Age without ever having opened their minds.

“Pop occultism is fodder for nincompoops, and its only merit is that it detracts from established religious mores.”

"The Devil's Notebook" by Anton LaVey (1992)₁₁

4. To Oppose or Support the New Age Movement?

Is Satanism inherently opposed to the New Age? On the one hand, it is not. This is because there is a cross over, some Satanists' are well versed in New Age concepts and practices through the mutual study of Hindu or other religious beliefs that individuals interested in New Age and Left Hand Path might read up on. Many Satanists' have been, or are, actively interested in various new age shops, people, events, practices and theory.

The "worth" of New Age is that it still freshens some peoples' minds, it forces the world to accept different ideas and fights stagnation. But disadvantages are that it may well foster and cultivate gullible stupidity and it certainly is a refuge for sheep who fail to question the whys and hows (of both the practices themselves and the practitioners who take their money). Depending on what a Satanist thinks the greater evil (organized religion... or stupidity?) and whether they grant the logic of the various branches of the new age in general any credit will determine whether (s)he opposes or supports (or ignores!) the New Age.

Read / Write Comments

By Vexen Crabtree 2004 May 26
www.dpjs.co.uk/new_age.html

Links:

• "Counter-Cultural New Religious Movements: From The New Age and Neo-Paganism to Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree (2012)

• Alan Anderson, on the New Age: websyte.com/alan/movement.htm

• OCRT on the New Age

Footnotes

1. Pearson (2002) p3.^
2. Main (2002) "Religion, science and the New Age" in Pearson (2002) chapter 5, p191.^
3. York (1995) p39.^
4. Asbjrn Dyrendal "Darkness Within: Satanism as a Self-Religion" in Petersen (2009) ch4. p59-71. Added to this page 2010 Dec 20.^^
5. Petersen (2009) p2. Added to this page on 2010 Dec 20.^
6. York, Michael "New Age Traditions" in Partridge (2004) p308-12. M. York is Principal Lecturer in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and Director of the Sophia Centre at Bath Spa University College, UK.^
7. Heelas (1996) ch. 2.^
8. James (1902) p106-107.^
9. Heelas, P. (1996) "The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity" p5. Published by Blackwell, Oxford, UK. Referenced in Main (2002) "Religion, science and the New Age" p185. In "Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age" by Joanne Pearson (2002) chapter 5.^
10. Harris (2006) footnote 12 to page 215. Added to this page on 2007 Jun 19.^
11. LaVey (1992) p44.^